Going for the Gold
On Cinco de Mayo — or St. Patrick’s Day Lite, as we like to call it — we were on a quest for the strongest margaritas in town.
OK, it wasn’t a true quest, in that we didn’t drink it up in every Mexican restaurant up and down Southwest Boulevard. Instead, we headed straight for Ponak’s, which was celebrating its 30th anniversary with live music and the Tecate and Jose Cuervo girls. We also wanted to check it out because of a tip we got from a regular reader. “I heard they have tequila on tap,” he wrote. “Cue up the Benny Hill music!”
Upon our arrival right after work with Research Assistants Kym and Cece, we discovered that our tip was quasi-true — if by “tequila” you mean “margaritas.” (Feel free still to cue the Benny Hill music, don a bobbie hat, and run around in speeded-up sequence, though.) Mixed up fresh every day, the margaritas are stored in canisters, which are hooked up to a tap (with a Cuervo handle), resulting in the best margaritas in town, according to all the Ponak regulars we talked to. They were pretty damned tasty; rumor has it they’re made with just Cuervo, lime juice and 7-Up or Sprite. (Manager Robert Yoesel declined to elaborate on the ingredients, other than to say, “It’s kind of like a Cuervo gimlet.”) This clear, beautifully golden-colored drink was a delicious contrast to the cloudy, mix-based, neon-colored margaritas at other establishments.
We weren’t even halfway into our first drink when a rather cute guy in a white oxford and dark cords approached us. “Are you feeling the lambada?” he suggestively asked.
“Why, yes, I am,” replied the Night Ranger, highly amused by that opening line. Our cohorts backed away, and new suitor Brian, 30, took the NR’s hand and led her into the dining room, where a guy in a spangly Mexican suit and sombrero sang a song of love. As we danced, non-lambada style (the only ones on the floor, to the amusement of the diners), Brian told us he’d been there all day. (He’s worked at Ponak’s for 15 years.) He seemed somewhat lit, but charmingly so.
“Do you really work at the Pitch? Now I’ll have to work twice as hard,” he said.
“Work twice as hard at what?” the NR coyly asked.
“At making my amore connection,” he replied, giving the NR a flirty look. “You haven’t seen anything yet — I barely touched you.” As cheesoid as that sounded, we still needed a drink after that interaction, so we went back to the main bar to reunite with our margarita.
The bar was packed with revelers, and we soon met Keith, 38. We had been heading to the front of the bar to watch the limbo action (the Cuervo girls were wielding a wooden stick that had a shot glass attached to it) but got stuck in a traffic jam right by his table, which was next to the front door.
Keith (“I’m also called Chief — I’m a little bit of Mexican, a little bit of Cherokee and had long hair down to here”) said he spends every Cinco de Mayo at Ponak’s. He had made friends with Janet and her friend Carey (who was visiting from San Diego), and they had not only snagged some beads from the liquor chicks but also taken a sombrero off a cactus in the window as well as a Corona-bottle piñata.
“I had to French-kiss the same guy [a waiter] three times to get the piñata in the car,” Carey told us.
“Well, was he at least a good kisser?” we wanted to know. Apparently, he was.
Anyway, Keith and his new friends were taking advantage of their table location. They told us they had been checking IDs and charging people $5 to get in.
“How much have you made?” we asked.
“About $200,” Janet said. Well! Ballsy and assholic, but we suppose that if people were giving money to two wastoidal white chicks (one of whom was in a goofy sombrero) who did not look like door people at all, then perhaps something must be said for the evil disingenuousness of their plan.
As the night wore on, the crowd thinned quite a bit. However, a respectable number of partyers were still roaringly drunk. We ran into a merry group of co-workers. Two of their members — “Ed” and “Savannah” — were all over each other at the bar. We caught the tail end of some story that ended with Savannah’s quote: “I lifted my dress and sat on him.” (“Hey, you’re giving me a hard-on over here,” slurred one of their friends.) Naturally, we had to talk to all of them.
They were happy enough (read: lit) to oblige with the sexy talk.
“I can make her orgasm in two minutes,” Ed said. (We half-hoped someone would jump in, Name That Tune-style, and say “I can do it in one,” but no such luck.)
“Are you serious?” asked their friend Dan incredulously.
“Naw — more like eight or ten,” Ed said. “Two minutes is really ideal.” (Hmm. For you, maybe, but not for us, we thought.)
“He’s the first man I’ve orgasmed with. I’ve never been a public-sex person until him,” Savannah said. These two met at work and waited three months to close the deal, they told us. (Uh, way to fill that in-box, Ed.)
Speaking of, our own work was done. In the immortal words of Survivor (the band, not the show), the margarita search was over; it was right there all along. So we decided to put in some overtime and hit a few more places, Benny Hill-style, before last call.
